


These Are the Days of Our Lives

by imgoingslightlymad



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama, M/M, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:59:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3083555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingslightlymad/pseuds/imgoingslightlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uther anti-magic Prime Minister. Merlin billionaire CEO. Arthur high-achieving daddy's boy. Uther persecutes magic. Merlin doesn't, and is caught between a rock and a hard place.<br/>"It took a certain type of person to make the product of 24 hours in a concrete cell and state of confusion look sexy. That the man was top-flight male model beautiful certainly helped. That he was gazing at Arthur with those glorious dark blue eyes, that that perfect mouth was caught somewhere between a pout and a smirk was perhaps even more to the point. Dragging his own eyes away from the other man, forcibly, he began the interrogation in what he hoped was a normal tone..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

}- Arthur’s POV –{

It took a certain type of person to make the product of 24 hours in a concrete cell and state of confusion look sexy. That the man was top-flight male model beautiful certainly helped. That he was gazing at Arthur with those glorious dark blue eyes, that that perfect mouth was caught somewhere between a pout and a smirk was perhaps even more to the point. Dragging his own eyes away from the other man, forcibly, he began the interrogation in what he hoped was a normal tone.

“Mr Emrys…”

“Please, call me Merlin,” the man responded in that smooth, rich voice of a thousand interviews.

“Mr Emrys, do you know why you are here?”

“Well, kidnapping seems a bit unusual for a first date, but honestly, I’m perfectly willing to see it as kinky rather than weird, just for you, sexy,” he said, accompanying this with a wink and lick of the lips that made Arthur swallow quickly, and left him grasping for some vestige of composure.

“One, this is an interrogation, two, will you please stop flirting with me?”

“We’re doing lists are we? Excellent. My turn then. One, role-play is fine, and I’m loving this whole interrogation scenario thing, two, I thought flirting was supposed to happen on dates, and three, do you have any idea how hot you look in that uniform?” came the rejoinder, accompanied by an appreciative and lingering look which took in the bit of Arthur visible above the table between the two.

Willing himself not to blush, and failing, to the apparent delight of the man opposite, he forced his mind back to the matter at hand.

“It has not escaped the notice of the government, Mr Emrys, that you have continued to involve yourself with certain persons and groups that it would be in your own interests to avoid. I must warn you that should you not do so then it may be necessary to take direct action against both yourself as an individual, and the companies you own. To avoid this we request that you immediately cease and desist your support for and contact with these individuals and their organisations.”

“Straight to the point, I see, is that scripted, or do you just sound that prattish normally?” Emrys’ expression quickly sobered as he responded and his gaze became more piercing than amused. “I’ll admit that I’m impressed to be deemed important enough to merit being brought in by the ‘Blacks’, but then I suppose it would be something of a triumph for Uther Pendragon to convert one of his highest-profile critics in the same week as his election triumph. Unfortunately, however, and in the words of Kiera Knightley in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, ‘’I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request’”

“Please start taking this seriously. I must warn you, Mr Emrys, that these are not idle threats.”

“Perhaps not, but more idle than you think, I suspect. Both you and your father overestimate yourselves, even as I probably overestimate myself sometimes…yes, no need to look so surprised, I know exactly who you are, though I’m gratified you’re not interviewing me from behind a balaclava, but letting me look at that gorgeous face of yours. Anyway, you seemed equally disconcerted a moment ago when I identified you and your team as the infamous ‘Blacks’. You see, when kidnapped you naturally wish to know as much about your captors as possible, and if the whole investigation process can be done in advance then I find it saves time, even if it does give me less opportunity to do my secret-agenty-spying thing. I do actually seem to have got a bit of that stuff in actually; you know, the whole getting kidnapped and threatened by the bad guys before turning the tables on them and making a dramatic escape which leaves the kidnappers looking, at best, slightly foolish, at worst, dead. You needn’t worry, babe, you’re too hot to kill, even if your father is trying to exterminate every person and cause I hold dear.” At this point he stopped talking and looked at Arthur expectantly.

Despite himself, Arthur was impressed, and completely bewildered. He had expected Emrys to be as impossible in interrogation as he had been in the numerous TV interviews he had watched in preparation for this. Despite this, Arthur was fairly experienced in this business, but still found himself caught completely off-guard by this mixture of absolute confidence, aggressive flirting and sheer sex-appeal. Realising that the gap in his conversation whilst he mused on all of this had become awkward rather than intimidating, and that it was apparently his turn to speak again, he quickly pulled himself back together.

“Mr Emrys, I have interrogated the deadliest sorcerers in the country. My team, who you seem to know so much about, were the ones who captured those self-same criminals. Do you really think a spoilt playboy turned businessman, who on some whim has adopted the cause of sorcery in Britain as some sort of self-righteous, attention seeking crusade, can hold a candle to the most dangerous lunatics of our generation?”

“Do you think I’m hot though?”

“I’m sorry?” Arthur asked incredulously.

“Oh don’t worry, I’ll go back to the points you made in your pretty speech, but I do want to know whether you’d be willing to go on a slightly more conventional date with me when I’m free and you’re available?”

“I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions here, Mr Emrys,” Arthur replied through gritted teeth, although he couldn’t deny that his heart had quickened traitorously at the prospect, however unfeasible and inappropriate, of another meeting with the man sitting on the other side of the steel table top.

“Well, you see, I thought that was the idea with this role-play, but most of your questions seemed to be rhetorical, so I decided to ask you one I actually wanted the answer to.”

“No, Mr Emrys, I do not wish to go out with you,” shouted Arthur, snapping, though whether out of genuine irritation or sexual frustration he didn’t dare ask himself. Banging a fist on the table as he stood, he leaned over to glare into the face of the man sat across from him.

No verbal response, just a look up at him through those long, coal black lashes.

“Mr Emrys, will you please listen to me?” He sounded desperate even to his own ears, no trace of the self-assured arrogance which was usually so effective at breaking those brought in.

“I listen, and yet hear nothing. The problem your father and his followers have always suffered from is their lack of subtlety, their absolute confidence that they are right, and that they alone have the power to force their petty prejudices and mistaken convictions on society. You see, I permitted myself to be taken because I wanted to talk to you, an interview which has come about, I admit, more easily than I had anticipated. 

We are the same age, both successful. You live in the shadow of your father and you let yourself be controlled and manipulated by him and his friends without ever asking why. You brought me in because that is what Uther ordered, because his control of you is all you have ever known. His quest against magic is doomed to failure for its destruction is impossible. Magic is not inherently evil, merely another source of power which is misunderstood and, by some, misused. The war your father wages is one that cannot be won because what he seems to want can never, and will never, happen. All he will achieve is the bringing of his own suffering to countless innocents.” A pause. “I accept that your father is himself beyond reason, maddened by a misplaced grief, but with you we have a chance to change that, a chance to unite against a common enemy infinitely more dangerous.” Merlin came to a conclusion, tone ringing and eyes burning with conviction.

In spite of himself Arthur was drawn to the words. He was also still confused. A simple grab-threaten-release had turned into a mess. Arthur prided himself on his immunity to the wiles of those he sat across the table from, but Emrys had cut through that, had somehow managed to cast doubt on the comfort of his convictions. He rose, intending to bring the session to an end, as yet undecided on whether to release Emrys or not, as per his instructions, despite his apparently abject failure at warning him off.

The man opposite stood up with him and looked, for the first time, slightly put out. The hand he extended for Arthur to shake decided his captor. Arthur pressed the button on his earpiece that would tell Gwaine and Lancelot, standing outside the door of the large room, that the interview was over. Nothing happened. The door failed to open, and a response of any kind to appear.

After a few moments of silence he tried to use the earpiece to contact Elyan, who should have been monitoring the comms. Silence, not even the static that would supposedly identify a compromised line, nothing.

Irritated, he strode towards the door. Before he could reach it, it fell in. In silence the door just dropped out of its frame and landed with a thump on the concrete floor at his feet. It was quiet for a moment before a group of black-clad figures stormed through the entrance. In seconds Arthur had been surrounded and found himself backed up against the far wall with two guns pressed into his stomach and another trained on his head from a few feet away.

Merlin’s eyes hadn’t left him the entire time, and Arthur now returned his look with a gaze that he suspected was marginally less composed than usual.

“My apologies for this, I needed to meet you in a way which wouldn’t raise your father’s suspicions. I hope you start to question him for once. I don’t expect an immediate conversion, but we need you, I need you,” he said almost pleadingly, before changing his tone. “Sorry if I’m being a bit dramatic with the exit, but it’s not very often I have a chance to do something as exciting as this. So forgive me that?” Emrys finished with a grin that showed perfect white teeth, before being hastened out by the three figures who had surrounded him.

Those covering Arthur drew back quickly once the first group had left, weapons still steadily trained. As the last of them backed through the doorway he made a gesture with the hand not holding a gun, murmured something, and the door flipped up and slammed back into its frame.

Pushing himself off the wall, and shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear his confusion and get a grip on the situation that had escalated out of control so quickly, he charged the door and attempted to pull it open. It was locked, the hinges somehow as new. It took two kicks to break the turned lock. The door burst outwards with considerably more noise than it had fallen in with earlier.

He found Gwaine and Lancelot slumped in the corridor outside, sat up against the wall next to one another. His checking of their pulses was interrupted by the beat of rotor blades, and he ran to the barred window at the end of the corridor in time to see a large black helicopter fade rapidly from sight over the line of trees at the edge of the training grounds.

He stood at the window swearing under his breath for a few seconds. The responsibility that had had been drilled into him since birth, however, was quick to assert itself and take over his actions. The two men in the corridor were stirring slightly, though as from sleep rather than being roused by the pain of any injuries. Once conscious they quickly started swearing, just as Arthur had been doing a few moments earlier.

“What happened?”

“What dyou bloody think happened?” Came Gwaine’s surly reply.

Lance, who was by this point slightly more in control of himself, gave a marginally more informative response. “We were playing sentry as you instructed. They came through the door at the end of the corridor, held us in place with magic. One of them came up to me, looked into my eyes and next thing I know I’m waking up on the floor.”

Returning his gaze to Gwaine, Arthur quickly confirmed that that the same thing had happened to both of them.

“Either of you get any faces?”

“They were wearing hoods…all I remember is green eyes glowing and then unconsc…”

“Can we have hoods too? I think I’d look good in one,” interrupted Gwaine, having apparently regained his sense of humour. This suggestion, as with most from him, was ignored.

“So what happened to you?” Asked Lance.

“I’m not entirely sure. The interview was, I’ll confess, going badly. Emrys seemed to be trying to convert me rather than listening to my warning him to back off.”

“Convert you to what, the idea that magic shouldn’t be ‘Stamped out in all forms, and all places, with vigour’?” Said Gwaine, taking a line from one of Uther’s notorious pamphlets.

“Something like that,” he replied, frowning slightly at the apparent mocking of his father. “As far as we were concerned it was a standard grab-threaten-release. Only the first of those happened as planned, and in retrospect, even that was suspiciously easy for such a high profile target. We left him locked up for a day, as usual, to reflect upon his sins, and then brought a supposedly largely amenable captive in for us to warn off. We thought this one might be a problem, but he was completely unaffected by the solitary and then came into the interview calm as you like and started flirting with me.” Ranted Arthur, losing it slightly towards the end as he remembered those eyes, those lips…those cheekbones…

“He tried to get it on with you?” Smirked Gwaine. “Lucky sod, though I think he might be out of even your league. To be fair, I wouldn’t have said no…”

Arthur glared, partly out of irritation at his subordinate’s lack of professionalism, but also out of an irrational sense of jealousy. It was him Merl…Emrys…had flirted with, not bloody Gwaine.

Lance came back into the conversation. “So for the first time we took someone who apparently didn’t mind being taken, who flirted when threatened and then escaped with absolutely no trouble whatsoever. Slightly embarrassing for us. What do we do now? How did sorcerers who clearly have considerable power even get within a mile of this place without setting off the sensors? Let alone being able to just walk up here, knock us out and escape with Emrys, without raising a single alarm?”

“I don’t fucking know,” came the glaring response. “We may be the best there is, but apparently we’re not good enough.”

“Why did Emrys let himself be kidnapped?” Interjected Gwaine suddenly.

“What?”

“Look, if the man has bodyguards who just made us look like amateurs, then how can we possibly have even got him that easily in the first place? He let himself get taken, knowing that he would be rescued. He probably even knew he would be taken as it’s not exactly a secret that swathes of your father’s opponents are having a sudden change of heart after returning from a mysterious disappearance.”

“He said himself that he’d allowed us to take him. All he did was basically tell me that magic isn’t actually evil, that my father is beyond hope, but he wants me to join him.”

“There you go then; you’re why he was here”

“I’m sorry?”

“Think for a moment, I know you were slightly distracted, and no doubt flattered by his attentions, but isn’t it more like that he’s decided to start his own campaign? As valuable as Emrys taken out of the opposition to your father would be, for Uther’s own son to defect from his father’s side would be an even bigger event.”

That made sense. “But isn’t this all a bit farfetched?”

“How dyou mean?”

“Well, he just turns up and spouts the same rubbish that the pro-magic faction has been using on brochures for years, tells me he needs me, and pisses off. He said he didn’t expect an ‘immediate conversion’, but even so, it was a bit of a half-hearted attempt at persuasion.”

“He’s just doing what we do, really,” reasoned Lance. “He comes in, tells that target, you in this case, what he wants, before showing us what he can do. Our reputation precedes us, makes people amenable, now his does too, and perhaps in future you’ll be more amenable.”

This, also, seemed logical to Arthur. Despite a lifetime of indoctrination there was something hugely appealing about not just Emrys himself, but his reasoning.

}- Merlin’s POV –{

He sat next to Gwen as the helicopter left the compound. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem, always happy to rescue the man who pays me. Anyway, how’d it go?” She asked him as she pulled back her hood and turned in her seat to face him.

“I’m not sure,” he responded, thoughts still focused on Pendragon. “He’s just as gorgeous as his photos though.”

She slapped him on the arm, but grinned slightly. “Well at least that’s something, you didn’t get anywhere with persuading the one person we must have to join us, but at least you met someone who might, just might, come close to approaching your insanely high standards.” She replied sarcastically.

“Nah, he was a bit boring to talk to, to be honest, and you know the idea wasn’t to convert him immediately. Anyway, don’t think I didn’t notice you eyeing up that guard as we left. Even I’ll admit he was pretty fit, despite your having knocked him unconscious,” he teased.

“Just my type too,” she sighed “shame he’s one of Uther’s drones.”

“Don’t be too disheartened, if I can get the son of our new Prime Minister to become one of us then I have no doubt that someone as sexy as you will have no trouble getting one of his men into bed”

She blushed slightly at the compliment, still not entirely immune to his charms despite having known him for several years, as well as his sexual preferences. “Anyway, you say you didn’t make much of an impression on him, so what…”

He interrupted her. “Look, I said I don’t know whether I was getting anywhere persuading him to question his father, but judging by the staring I made something of an impression on him.”

“Do you have to seduce everything that moves?” Gwen asked with a touch of asperity.

“Well, I prefer those who fulfil certain physical criteria”

“Those criteria being 1) Sexy and 2) Male?”

“Yes to number 1, but I tried females a few times and found the whole thing a bit underwhelming. I don’t really know what all the fuss is about.”

“You’re really not good for a girl’s self-esteem, you know that?”

“I’m sure that sex with you would be anything but underwhelming Gwen,” came the arch reply.

“See what I mean about the flirting?” She said, blushing again.

“Yes, sorry about that.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Well done Arthur.”

This seemed to be all that Uther was going to say, as his gaze immediately went back to the monitor in front of him. His son was as confused as he had been when facing Emrys a week before; praise from his father was rare even when he’d succeeded at something, and in this case he certainly hadn’t. Emrys had escaped, and the next day a vitriolic attack on the new government’s heavy-handed policies had featured prominently in several major papers, articles which were now trending online. 

Arthur had been told by his father’s secretary that Uther had been furious about it. Being more in the public eye than ever before had the disadvantage of making the bullying and scare tactics that had worked so well for him in the past now bought headlines rather than silence.

The silence endured for more than a minute before Arthur risked trying to draw his father into conversation. “Several seemed unresponsive, and to be honest, unless any threats are followed through with that seems unlikely to change.”

Uther didn’t look up as he responded. “You silenced quite a few voices, more than we expected perhaps, and that was what was needed, at least no one was brave enough to take a story about government kidnappings to the press, although that article we believe to have come from…”

“Merlin Emrys,” supplied Arthur.

“Yes, him, that article was not helpful. He may only be your age, but he’s clearly a bigger threat than we had anticipated. He also seems to have access to certain information which he shouldn’t, and we’ve had to scrap or delay several of the plans he mentioned so as to not look like complete fools, seeing as he’s lambasted them so comprehensively, before they’ve even been announced. You interviewed him, and according to your report got nowhere, what was your impression of him as a person?”

Arthur’s report had naturally failed to mention the precise nature of his conversation, and he’d thought it prudent to change ‘escaped’ to ‘was released’. He quickly decided that his father didn’t need to know any of that not either. 

“Charming, threatening, ultimately inscrutable.”

“Threatening?”

“Standard line, war against magic destined to fail, magic something we can’t hope to destroy, even claimed he’d let us take him in.” Arthur tried to sound scornful here, as though he were laughing at the audacity of such an idea, whilst internally remembering how he and his team had privately agreed with Emrys’ last claim, if not the former.

“And yet you say he was charming? Make no mistake Arthur,” Uther frowned as his gaze and attention came back to rest on his son. “I know about your sexual…preferences. You know that I disapprove, but that I was willing to stay quiet as long as your activities did. However, I promised you that the instant your work was compromised, the second you ceased to be everything I require of you, that is when this madness ends and I find you a wife. I knew that it was a mistake putting you in contact with…temptation, and I can see now that you need to settle down.”

Arthur blinked. Once he’d caught up with what his father had been saying in his rant he became angry. Emrys was nothing more than an excuse, this whole Arthur being unable to do his job a cover.

“Father, you know perfectly well that I have no interest in marrying a woman, and even if I did it certainly wouldn’t be one chosen by you. I’m too young to even be considering marriage, and I have no intention of living a lie for the rest of my life for the sake of your political ambitions.”  
“My son must be above suspicion,” came the sanctimonious response.

“Suspicion of what, exactly?” We don’t live in the dark ages, have you not heard that homosexuality is the latest craze?” Arthur said ironically. “I’d have thought that you’d be the first to see the PR value of a gay son.”

“I have turned a blind eye long enough.” Uther snapped. “PR is indeed important, but I can assure you that telling the general public that my son is a pervert will do our cause infinitely more harm than good. I appreciate that you may find it difficult to change, but I know what you understand that it is your duty to do whatever is necessary.”

“Father, I am gay. Nothing you say or do is going to change that, and I have no intention or desire to change either. I have done and become everything else you wanted, but this is the one thing I will not give in on.”

A pause.

“This interview is over, Arthur. Your new orders will be forwarded in the next few days.”

Uther returned to his monitor, face cold and shoulders set. Arthur stood and left the room.

He drove slowly back to base. He was fuming even a couple of hours after his father’s comments.

-

The Blacks were currently stationed on the outskirts of London. The house they occupied was the one Arthur had grown up in. The large Georgian manor and its gardens had been converted into a base for Arthur and his men a few years earlier, when Uther had moved to Westminster to pursue his political ambitions full-time.

Save for the barbed wire which now topped the enclosing brick walls, the appearance of the estate had changed little on the surface since its military occupation. The already extensive security systems had been augmented by Elyan to match those that guarded the interrogation compound.

After the Range Rover’s number plate had been approved by the camera on the gate Arthur drove on through and pulled into the garage to one side of the main house. He was greeted in the kitchen by Leon, who was looking thoroughly domesticated in a striped apron, though his expression suggested all was not well. Arthur grimaced as he enquired about his meeting.

“Commendation for the efficacy of our scare tactics, even if they didn’t really work. Fresh orders to be forwarded on in a few days, until then it’s R&R and nothing more dangerous than your cooking.”

“Then why the glum expression? Anyway, we know you can cook, but pull rank just so you don’t have to, so you can hardly be rude about my experimental cuisine.”

“The glum expression is because of my father’s most recent demonstration of his raging homophobia, and you know perfectly well that the cooking is shared out equally.”

Leon’s expression assumed the awkward sympathy it usually did at these moments, but he recovered quickly and tried to drag Arthur out of his mood.

“I keep saying we should get a cook, you had one as a child after, and we’re all hopeless at it.”

“Except me. Yes, I know we had a cook, and I know that her teaching me is what makes my dinners edible and yours not, but you know perfectly well that we can’t just hire random strangers to come in and make our lives easier.” Arthur was aware of what Leon was doing, but let himself be drawn in anyway.

“I’m sure we can find a cook who isn’t a spy… and to be honest I really think we need one.” Leon said sorrowfully as he looked into the pot on the Aga in front of him, poking half-heartedly at its contents with a spoon. Arthur got up and went over to him, peering over his shoulder.

“And this is?”

“Was, dinner.”

“I couldn’t tell, what were you trying to make?”

“Boeuf bourguignon,” Leon responded, gesturing towards the book open on the table.

“I still can’t work out how, when following a recipe, you all manage to make a complete mess every single time.”

“It’s a talent,” Leon said mournfully.

“So, how far are you supposed to have got?” Arthur said, now scanning the recipe in front of him.

“I added the wine about an hour ago, came back to check on it just before you came in, and found it like this.”

“How much wine did you add?”

“I don’t know, half a bottle or so?”

“And presumably you’ve quadrupled this recipe for four to feed 10 the ten of us?”

“Yup, I couldn’t find an amount for the wine, it just said ‘add wine and simmer for a couple of hours’ or something, so I just shoved some in and left it…”

“You probably needed to add four or five bottles, otherwise all the liquid will just simmer away and it ends up looking like, well, that.”

“It’s not salvageable then?”

“Nope, looks like we’re getting something in tonight…again.”

“I’ll call for it. Look, why don’t you teach us how to cook? You said we’ve got a few days free now, and it’s not like we’re allowed to go anywhere.”

“We’re supposed to be a crack military unit, and I somehow doubt my father would look kindly on us frittering our days away with cooking classes.”

“Keeping the men fed probably counts as a necessity, wouldn’t you say?”

Arthur rolled his eyes, but privately started mentally setting aside some time in the daily routine. At this moment Gwaine came into the room behind where Arthur was leant over the table, and jumped on him from behind.

“Ouch,” winced Arthur, pulling the arms from around his neck, turning, and dumping him unceremoniously onto the table.

“Welcome home Princess,” Gwaine purred. “Didn’t you want to be ridden?”

“Well, my father doesn’t want me to be certainly,” winced, Arthur. “And neither of us want me to be ridden by you.”

“Daddy issues?”

“You should probably take that as read by now.”

“You could always go after Emrys?”

“Just because you want a hood.”

“Well you won’t give me one, maybe he would…” Gwaine smirked.

Arthur Glared

-

The orders came through 48 hours later. The email arrived just before 7 in the evening, the confirming phone call a few seconds later. Arthur scanned the contents.

“Shit,” he muttered.

The first attached document contained the orders themselves, the second a list, the third and fourth additional information. It was the first he was swearing over. Couched in the standard, formalised language which left no room for interpretation were instructions to, effectively, carry out the threats they had been told to make in the interrogations. The team was to “effect the maximum amount of damage possible” whilst simultaneously gathering any “information in the form of documentation, digital or physical, of which either the loss is detrimental to the operations of the aforementioned interests, or the gain of which to the material benefit of those involved.” Unstamped and unsigned by authority as it was, carefully anonymous, the document was also unequivocal, to Arthur at least. 

His father had gone mad. Breaking into, destroying, vandalising and stealing the property of these individuals and companies was, surely, the worst possible way to keep them quiet. The tractable ones had been warned off by the threats alone; those left were the hard-line and implacable. This suspicion was confirmed by a look at the list. 8 individuals and 3 companies. From memory 4 of the individuals had been brought in and interviewed, the remainder having been either abroad or inaccessible at the time. Sure enough, the list ended with the subconsciously expected 

Merlin Emrys  
Emrys International

This operation seemed unlikely to go well. Unfortunately Arthur had few avenues for questioning the orders, and no expectation whatsoever of any complaints or arguments from him resulting in their rescindment.

He opened and glanced through the last two files: biographies and photographs of the individuals, case studies of the companies. Addresses of homes, offices, warehouses, factories, labs, all accompanied by a mixture of information or speculation covering anticipated security, a few by sketchy floorplans. In total, not much to go on.

Sighing, he got up took the laptop with him through into the dining room. Most of the team were sat down already, Gwaine on an uncomfortable looking Lance’s lap rather than a chair. Kay was cooking dinner, and had called them through a few minutes earlier. Leon raised an eyebrow at him as Arthur put the laptop down on the table in front of him.

“Orders,” he mouthed. “I’ll go through them when everyone’s here.”

Leon nodded in response, and grimaced as Arthur asked if he knew what dinner was.

“No idea, Kay’s been locked up in the kitchen for the last couple of hours and won’t let anyone in, it’s been hard enough persuading him to pass beer through the door.”

“Sounds ominous.”

As the last of the team came through from the living area the kitchen door opened and Kay enters, wearing oven gloves and carrying a stack of plates. When he returns, carrying a large dish of Bolognese which smells edible, Gwaine wolf-whistles and asks Kay to marry him.

“You’d never be faithful to me.”

“There’s a first time for everything?” Gwaine whines.

“And the first week you try monogamy will also be the last.”

“Open relationship?”

“So I’m not good enough for you?”

“I haven’t proposed to anyone else…”

“You’ve proposed to everyone in this room.”

“Stop making me look desperate.”

Arthur interrupted.

“Quiet, both of you. Kay, dinner, the rest of you, attention.”

He paused for a moment as Kay began dishing up and passing plates of food round.

“Fresh orders.”

A couple of good-natured groans, their sentiment belied by the general leaning in towards Arthur.

He took a deep breath, now for the difficult bit. “We’re coming good on the threats we’ve made.”

A few raised eyebrows and a “What thre…” from Ewan, cut off by a look of comprehension.

“We’ve got a list of targets, addresses, and some additional information my father’s people have deigned to give us. Timescale, two months, about a dozen targets.”

“So what exactly are we doing?” Lance questioned.

“Breaking in, vandalising, destroying, and stealing, namely,” he replied, ticking the words off on his fingers distastefully.

“That’s not really our scene; doesn’t your father have other people to do this sort of thing for him?” Questioned Kay, as he sat down with his own food.

“Probably, but these are important targets and I doubt he wants any fuck-ups.”

“Like the one with Emrys?”

“Exactly.”

“So is he on this list of targets?”

“Yes, both him and his company.”

“That’s going to go well… this is actually pretty good Kay,” commented Owain.

“Cheers,” replied Kay, looking up, “so who/what’s the first target?”

“Henry Ruadan, one of the ones we couldn’t find to interview. Quiet in public, supposed to run a ring of magical terrorists in private. Known to be a powerful sorcerer himself.”

“Sounds fun,” said Gwaine cheerfully, “so we’re raiding his house?”

“Yup, should be easy enough as he’s still supposed to be away in Argentina for some reason or other, probably a few members of his gang about, but no serious opposition expected. Sketchy blueprints of at least the ground floor of the house, CCTV room marked.” He finished, glancing at Elyan, who nodded.

“Address is in Cumbria, we’ll load the cars tonight and leave at 0800.”

This time the nodding was general.

-

It was 0803 when they left in the end, 10 of them and equipment split between the three Range Rovers. Leon led the convoy north up the M4, aggressive driving and empty roads completing the 5 hour drive in just over 4.

Ruadan’s house, found after consultation of paper maps when GPS failed, turned out to be an isolated building at the bottom of a broad, shallow valley. They parked as inconspicuously as possible outside the nearest settlement, a village more than a mile away. Gwaine was sent in and managed to charm the girl behind the counter of the village shop into telling him about the sinister looking men who came in every couple of days for cigarettes and alcohol.

“Come in in pairs,” he concluded his report, “usually lots of different faces, but apparently it’s only been the same two pairs coming in alternately now for a couple of weeks.” They were sat in one of the cars with Lance and Leon, planning.

“At least four at home then, possibly more, how are you sure these are the ones we need to know about?” Arthur questioned.

“It’s a small village, lots of gossip; everyone seems to know about the suspicious men who moved in a couple of years ago. I didn’t even really need to question her much because the woman just kept talking and fluttering her eyelashes.”

“Exactly why we send you in; women can flirt with you and there’s no danger of you getting distracted.”

“In that case half the team would be eligible, you know it’s because of my charm and rugged good looks.”

“Or because it gets you out of the way for a couple of hours.”

Leon interrupted before Gwaine could respond. “Ok ladies, mind returning to the matter at hand?”

“Not at all, you’re up Princess,” Gwaine said cheerfully.

Arthur glared at him for a moment before speaking. “It’s now 1400, at this time of year we can expect it to be dark by 1900, so that’s when we’ll go in.”

“Bit early isn’t it? I mean, there’s no way they’re going to be asleep or anything by then.” Questioned Leon.

“Yes, but the objectives are a bit different here. We’re going to be there for a couple of hours at least, making a lot of noise etc. I want to know exactly where the people inside the building are, however many. Ideally we catch them at dinner. As far as we know they’re not terribly security conscious, under the impression that no one knows about their activities, and even if they did, certainly haven’t tracked them down. Unlikely to be any patrols, particularly if there are only a few in residence and with Ruadan away. We go straight in, disarm and restrain the people, get them down before they can get a message out, which would more difficult if they’re all asleep in different rooms and spread out. Then we do what we’ve been ordered. Details when Kay and Ewan get back from scouting. Leon, radio Percival and Pellinore to get us some lunch from the nearest town. Change back into your gear now Gwaine.”

“You could just ask if you want me to strip for you.” He replied, pulling off the tight t-shirt he’d worn into the village to reveal a muscled stomach.

Arthur ignored him.

-

Ewan and Kay’s report was largely as expected: no sign of any particular security, magical or otherwise. One car outside the building, possibly a second in garage. Some smoke from chimney, no other sign of human habitation. The location of kitchen seemed to match that on the rough blueprints, with the back door and two large windows in the rear wall.

Pellinore, watching the house through powerful binoculars from the edge of the valley, called the targets as sitting down to eat just after 1915. Arthur felt relieved he’d delayed going in, trusting to the excellent view Pellinore claimed to have managed.

He ran, followed by the five others, towards the building. To his immense relief they managed to reach the back wall, crouching against the bricks with no sign of an alarm being raised. He gestured for the three with him to follow to the back door, Ewan and Owain having already gone around the front to prevent any escape.

Not anticipating the door being locked, but unwilling to take the chance, he shot keyhole, before kicking it open and charging in. Half a dozen men were sat around a table in the centre of the room, surprised faces looking up towards him from plates of food. The others followed him straight in, firing rubber bullets into the group. Five were brought down quickly as they pushed forwards, two knocked unconscious by Kay and Gwaine whilst the others were pushed down and handcuffed.

The sixth, acting more quickly than his fellows, sprinted for the door and managed to get through it. He was dragged back in a few seconds later by Owain. Working quickly, they were restrained hand and foot before Lance injected each with a tranquiliser. “You’ve got 8 hours before they begin to stir, say 6 to be on the safe side.”

Arthur nodded an acknowledgement. His father would no doubt have wanted the men killed, both as surety and warning. The rubber bullets would, particularly at such short range, no doubt have broken a few bones, but they’d aimed for non-critical spots, and he decided shattered ribs were preferable to bodies. Lance was left in the kitchen as guard whilst Arthur took Kay and Gwaine with him to where Ruadan’s study had been marked on the map, Ewan and Owain heading up the stairs.

The door they wanted was locked, and stood frozen as Arthur pushed against it. A crackle of magic scorched his glove when he tried to force the handle. Kay came forward and pushed some plastic explosive into the lock, gesturing Arthur and Gwaine backwards before detonating it. The lock shattered, and although the door itself held, the seal placed on it had cracked and was weakened sufficiently for it to be shoulder-barged in.

Kay flicked on the main light, revealing a large desk, top cleared, and a bank of filing cabinets against the wall behind it. Other than that the room was empty. Arthur went over to the desk, again shooting the locks. Two handguns, half a dozen clips of bullets. Some papers, but apparently nothing important. Kay and Gwaine were rifling through the filing cabinets, which appeared to be completely full of paperwork.

He took a small metal detector out and began running it methodically over the walls. Short bleeps from nails or similar, nothing more substantial. He began on the floor, passing the detector in sweeps down from the door towards the opposite wall. It wasn’t until the others had shoved the filing cabinets away from their wall that anything came up. Gwaine passed him a penknife, which he used to lever away the skirting board that had set off the detector. He pulled out a large, locked, cashbox from behind it and rolled his eyes at Ruadan’s uninventiveness.

The seal on the cashbox was far stronger than that on the door, and eventually he gave up, deciding to take it back with them. He radioed Ewan and Owain, who responded that they’d found nothing more than a “Shitload of weapons and a box of explosives”, and would soon be finished with upstairs.

Arthur stepped out of the study and called Elyan in from his position watching the house. By the time he arrived Arthur had found the door to the CCTV room and managed to break in, this time without bullets. The camera system was not extensive, and half of the monitors were blank. Heat vision cameras had shown the room to be unoccupied, as the rudimentary intelligence had suggested it would be, with Ruadan not in residence. Elyan sat down and began the process of wiping all footage; the computers and cameras could, and would, be destroyed, but Arthur was unwilling to risk anything being automatically stored online.

He returned to the study, Gwaine and Kay still sorting through cardboard folders full of documents. Kay looked up.

“This is going to take hours.”

“I can see, the other two are just finishing up upstairs and then they can come and help.” He replied, coming forwards and taking a stack of folders from a top drawer. “Just skim them, now we’re secure we can have the cars brought up and take anything that looks remotely interesting.”

Two hours later they were done, stack of papers to take waist high, the rest scattered around the room randomly. They loaded the cars with the stuff to take before dragging the restrained terrorists out onto the grass in the freezing January air. There was nothing much to destroy in warning, so Arthur decided to burn the place to the ground instead, that would hopefully get him some credit.

Gwaine brought a can of petrol in and doused the papers on the office floor. Arthur dropped a lighter onto the mess and stared at the flames for a few moments before stepping out of the room and leaving the house. They were away by midnight, before the moon had properly risen. Arthur watched from the backseat of the car as flames engulfed the house, the process accelerated when the explosives caught.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May as well carry on. Cheers for the comments & kudos guys. I'll try to update roughly weekly, but lots of stuff on atm so may be fortnightly. Please pick up on any errors so I can correct =).

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic (so be nice?), got bored decided to start writing something, please tell me if it's worth pursuing.


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